What do you think of these mods

bbradleynyc

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So I've been seeking an early m65 to use as a small jazz guitar...I had seen this one for sale and passed but someone modified it with different pickups (leaving the guitar without marks and including the original franz pickups in the case)
Any chance this makes it even a better jazz box or is this the wrong idea?

Here is the listing on reverb...

https://reverb.com/item/1226439-guild-m-65-1959-2-tone-sunburst

any advice would be appreciated!
 

bbradleynyc

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Oh I read just now that its polite to introduce yourself , I'm brad from NYC, started learning jazz guitar a few years back wanting to learn standards and classic jazz

I'm making progress

I wanted a guild m65 I saw in a store in NYC from 1958 but it was sold before j could come back for it... I bought a gibson 175 (1977) from craigslist and it's wonderful but somehow I really love guilds! I read often but post infrequently and really appreciate the replies I get as I always learn from you all!
 

davismanLV

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HAAAAAA HAAAAA!! Yeah, Brad, it is polite to introduce yourself It's not NECESSARY but it usually creates a better response. Unfortunately, I'm an acoustic dork and I have no information for you OTHER than Welcome to LTG!! Someone will be along with information .... they will. :encouragement:
 

JohnW63

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Given it can be returned to stock configuration, assuming the seller is correct, of course, I think it wouldn't have any lost value. Now, what is the proper price for one in that condition... ? I am way to new at this to tell you. But Tom and I are here to bid you Welcome! The guys that will know the answer must go to bed before us two.
 

Zelja

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Hi bbnyc, welcome to the forum.

I can see the price in Australian dollars only but I assume it's about US$1400? That seems like a pretty reasonable price for a '59 & a full size one. Others may have their finger more on the pulse with regard to recent sales - I've stopped looking since our dollar dropped. This one from '68 is the same price with the Mickey Mouse pickup: http://www.ebay.com/itm/Vintage-1968-Guild-M-65-EUC-with-OHSC-International-Shipping-/181900177475?

If everything can be returned to stock then it shouldn't be an issue with resale etc. Seems it would be relatively easy to do. The bridge pickup seems to be floating from the new pickguard so hopefully hasn't made any markings on the top. Hopefully the addition of the neck pickup ring won't leave any traces behind, but who knows. Also if the pickguard used the same mounting holes as the original you should be sweet.

Whether it makes a better jazzbox with these pickups is ultimately personnel preference. It would certainly be a more versatile guitar with the 5 pickup combinations. Re the replaced neck pickup, I suspect some jazzers like humbuckers better for a smoother tone but this is a minihum so inherently brighter & seems to be a bright pickup in general. See the Dimarzio website: http://www.dimarzio.com/pickups/mini/dimarzio-vintage-minibucker-neck-model

There's always the tone knob though...

The one thing I don't like about the Dimarzio is that is hasn't got exposed pole pieces you can adjust, which can help with string to string balance. May not be much of an issue though.

The original Franz could be anywhere from 5 to 7k. It would also be pretty articulate especially as it is a single coil.
 

bbradleynyc

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This is very helpful thanks! Wonder if the original pickup is better?!?
 

adorshki

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This is very helpful thanks! Wonder if the original pickup is better?!?
Welcome aboard sir, and I'm primarily an acoustic guy myself, but there's a LOT of around love here for the original Franz and Mickey Mouse pickups, I think "warm" would be a common description.
If you weren't aware of it, Guild's founder Al Dronge was a jazz lover and even a bit of a player himself, and in '58 the guitars were primarily aimed at jazz players, so "read between those lines".
Good luck and keep us posted on how it goes!
 

bbradleynyc

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This is a great point! Is there a jazzed out there who uses an M65 for standards who can comment?
 

adorshki

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This is a great point! Is there a jazzed out there who uses an M65 for standards who can comment?
Some of the jazzers who were still a little active when I joined up have slacked off posting considerably, and most of 'em played X-models or AA's to my memory anyway,so if nobody pops up, best suggestion I could give is to start checking posts in this forum working your way back, or even start as far back as you can go and work forward. Thread titles'll probably give a pretty good clue to content. Lotta pickup refs there too.
 

SFIV1967

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Just some thoughts about this guitar. As also mentioned in the Reverb add, that M-65 only had a Franz neck pickup. That's why there are only two knobs originally. So the bridge pickup was added. That kind of pickguard and the pickup selector switch are not original and were added. Now it looks like that the bridge pickup and the switch are floating and only fixed on the new pickguard. Also all the parts are available, so basically the guitar can be returned to an original state M-65.
So all in all it looks like a great guitar for a good price!

And that added picture proofs how she looked originally:

vm0bxrmbzzgbb6pgmnp4.jpg


Ralf
 

bbradleynyc

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Thanks Ralf I appreciate your comments! Seems like one option would be to put back the franz and keep the floater as another tone option?
I like the comment earlier they dronge was a jazzer so that pickup must have been chosen for a reason and will give an authentic jazz tone for that era?
 

gilded

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Welcome to the forum, Bradley.

Well, the guitar is in Brooklyn and you are in NYC, too? So you can look at it in person, right?

I agree that it would be a neat guitar, if everything works right and if the modifications are truly reversible. If you go look at it, make sure the pickup cavity route was not made slightly larger when they installed the mini humbucker. Get a 6" metal rule marked in 32nds and 64ths, then measure the width and depth of the original pickup. Measure the width and depth of the hum bucker surround. If they are the same and the pickup cavity route doesn't look enlarged, then you are in good shape vis a vis the reversibility issue.

I wonder if that bridge pickup is a single pole or a humbucker. If it's a single pole pickup, it's going to have some hum to it compared with the neck pickup. That may or may not bother you. The bridge pickup and switch appear to mounted on the pickguard. Again, if there are no markings under the pickup, you are in good shape with that issue.

One thing bothers me on this guitar is that the bridge top is all the way down, bottomed-out, i.e., can't be adjusted any lower. This reminds me of an unfortunate problem I had with an M-65: The hollow laminate body had caved in under the pressure of the string tension!

My guitar was an early '70's model. It was extremely clean, with a shiny black finish and an engraved harp tailpiece. I thought it was a really cool light-weight guitar, until I couldn't get the action down. I took it to my luthier, who showed me that the body had torqued (caved in) under the pressure of the string tension. The symptoms were that the break-over angle was very mild (too shallow) and that, while the bridge top was slammed down as far as it could go, the action was still too high. You could play cowboy chords, but not up the neck.

My luthier said there were two fixes; re-set the neck to treat the symptoms of the the body problem, or attempt to re-torque the body, by applying tension to the guitar in the opposite direction of the normal string tension. The neck was in good and tight, so steaming the neck out would have really affected the finish. Re-tensioning the body might have worked, but it was also going to crack the finish. So, both fixes were going to hurt the value of the guitar and I didn't attempt the repair(s).

I didn't think much of it until a couple of years ago, when I bought a '60's Starfire III that had the same problem, a 'torqued' body. This time the finish was so beat-up that I opted for the neck re-set option. While the repair turned out well, pulling the neck on a guitar that doesn't need it can be problematic. With the Starfire, a 3" piece of the side laminate pulled off when the neck came out! Again, the guitar was so beat-up that when the loose piece of laminate was glued back you couldn't even see the repair, even when you were looking right at it!

Finally, the M65 was always a beginner's guitar. You can doll 'em up, but they don't have the value of the more professional grade instruments. Caveat Emptor, Let the Buyer Beware!
 

SFIV1967

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Finally, the M65 was always a beginner's guitar. You can doll 'em up, but they don't have the value of the more professional grade instruments.
Well, the M-65 was good enough for Keith Richards, even if he added a second pickup! See post #45 and #273. Much later Keith used a very early M-75, see post #104.
Ralf
 

gilded

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I'll stand by my opinion, Ralf. You are welcome to yours and Keith is welcome to his.
 

SFIV1967

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I'll stand by my opinion, Ralf. You are welcome to yours and Keith is welcome to his.
Sure! No problem! I just wanted to say that people pay crazy money for a old Aristocrat M-75 and the Freshman M-65 was "basically" the same guitar just with one pickup less and a bit less bling, but added f-soundholes. And yes, it was aiming at the beginners market when it came out in 1958. The sunburst M-65 was offered for $195 in 1959 vs the M-75 for $265.
Ralf
 

gilded

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Ralf, sorry, I guess I should have taken that 3 hour nap BEFORE I wrote that post! I just woke up! Sorry, Old and Grouchy today, I am!! Mea Culpa!
 

bbradleynyc

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Interestingly I have always been more interested in the m65 over the m75 because, being primarily interested in jazz guitar, it has the neck pickup and f holes more closely associated with jazz... I wonder about this issue of the bridge Being all the way down and if that makes this an undesirable specimen

Also the burst coloration isn't the one I prefer (this one is more yellow and I prefer the more red) but according to the ad this one has great acoustic sound I really should try it out!
 

SFIV1967

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Also the burst coloration isn't the one I prefer (this one is more yellow and I prefer the more red)
I know what you mean, but this is the real 50ies deal, think about a 1954 two tone sunburst Stratocaster. The 3 tone sunburst with red in it only started in 1958 for Fender Stratocasters for instance. So that M-65 looks really vintage (also with the original stove knobs) and I think for a Jazz player that brown two tone sunburst looks better than a 3 tone sunburst with red and bright yellow in the middle.
I just noticed the guitar shows up as "SOLD" on Reverb!
Ralf
 
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